3 ms·

> But the thing is, as the Catholics recognize, the Bible didn't come to us as an monolithic whole. Its composition has changed over the centuries as books have

> But the thing is, as the Catholics recognize, the Bible didn't come to us as an monolithic whole. Its composition has changed over the centuries as books have fallen in and out of favor. Can you give examples of books added and removed from the Bible that Catholics would recognize, after it was formalized? This is a very strange claim to me.

acjohnson55 4y ago
The agreed upon Bible wasn't formalized for centuries after the books themselves were finalized. And denominations, to this day, disagree about which books are canonical. Also, almost every Bible is a translation of source material in Greek or Aramaic into the reader's language. Over time, the manuscripts used for translations has changed, as manuscripts have been discovered and compared, which has meaningfully changed the content of editions over time. The best contemporary editions have copious footnotes on how the source material was reconciled. If you want to dig into this, the Wikipedia article has a lot to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Christian_canons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Christian_canon... The podcast History in the Bible is also a very interesting secularist exploration of the origins of the Biblical books and the process by which the canon (or really canons) emerged: https://www.historyinthebible.com/ https://www.historyinthebible.com/
- aestetix 4y ago
  Maybe I misread what you were saying. I was asking specifically about the Catholic Bible. Naturally many denominations post-Reformation are going to disagree, and even the Eastern Orthodox don't agree. But you seem to be lumping them all into the same group, when they are in fact very different. Is there any specific group/denomination you know of that has added or removed a book after declaring what they deem to be the "true" Bible?
HideousKojima 4y ago
The biggest example would be the Apocrypha, which is accepted as canon by Catholics (and most Orthodox churches?) while it's usually (but not always) rejected by a lot of Protestants.

acjohnson55 4y ago

The agreed upon Bible wasn't formalized for centuries after the books themselves were finalized. And denominations, to this day, disagree about which books are canonical. Also, almost every Bible is a translation of source material in Greek or Aramaic into the reader's language. Over time, the manuscripts used for translations has changed, as manuscripts have been discovered and compared, which has meaningfully changed the content of editions over time. The best contemporary editions have copious footnotes on how the source material was reconciled. If you want to dig into this, the Wikipedia article has a lot to say: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Christian_canons https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_canon#Christian_canon... The podcast History in the Bible is also a very interesting secularist exploration of the origins of the Biblical books and the process by which the canon (or really canons) emerged: https://www.historyinthebible.com/ https://www.historyinthebible.com/

aestetix 4y ago
Maybe I misread what you were saying. I was asking specifically about the Catholic Bible. Naturally many denominations post-Reformation are going to disagree, and even the Eastern Orthodox don't agree. But you seem to be lumping them all into the same group, when they are in fact very different. Is there any specific group/denomination you know of that has added or removed a book after declaring what they deem to be the "true" Bible?

HideousKojima 4y ago

The biggest example would be the Apocrypha, which is accepted as canon by Catholics (and most Orthodox churches?) while it's usually (but not always) rejected by a lot of Protestants.